In 1975, three Catholic and three Protestant children from Northern Ireland stepped off a plane at JFK for a summer away from The Troubles. Fifty years later, their stories and the stories of the some thousands of children who followed are the focus of a new book: Project Children: The Legacy by Derry author Jane Buckley.

Launching Tuesday, October 13 at the Monaghan Peace Campus, the book is the centerpiece conversation Irish Stew co-hosts John and Martin had with Catherine Flood and Linda Croston, the volunteer forces-of-nature behind Project Children's 50th anniversary celebration in County Monaghan last October and the upcoming book launch.

Catherine, from County Monaghan and Linda from West Cork were already a seasoned team, running Croston Flood, a highly-regarded recruiting, consulting, and event management firm working across the New York tri-state area.

The Project Children 50th Anniversary celebration last October brought 350+ guests to Monaghan for 11 events over five days, which included a parade featuring the NYPD Pipes and Drums and a 750-person gala. It also marked the transatlantic move of the Project Children archive to the Monaghan Peace Campus, where the Project Children Stories exhibition now has a permanent home.

The heartwarming saga began with Denis Mulcahy, a Cork native and decorated NYPD bomb squad detective. He and his brother Pat believed that Catholic and Protestant kids who spent a summer together would grow up less likely to fight. More than 23,000 children went on to stay with 16,000 host families in 22 states.

"You're driven by passion. And sometimes it's a bit crazy and there's not enough hours in the day, but somehow it gets done." Catherine says.

Project Children; The Legacy tells the program's story in the voices of the children, host families, donors and volunteers who lived it. Ironically, Buckley applied to Project Children as a child and was never picked, so this book is her way of finally taking part in the grassroots peace project.

"This book really is a voice for everyone that has been part of the program," Linda says.

The official launch of Project Children: The Legacy will be Tuesday, October 13, from 7 to 9 PM at the Monaghan Peace Campus, featuring author Jane Buckley and Project Children guiding light Denis Mulcahy, special guests from the NYPD where Denis once served, and live music, all streamed throughout the Peace Campus. Launch day will be preceded by a Community Day on Saturday, October 10 and launch festivities continue in Belfast on October 14 and Derry on October 15.

LINKS

CROSTON FLOOD

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• Linda Croston
• Catherine Flood

PROJECT CHILDREN

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MONAGHAN PEACE CAMPUS

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IRISH STEW LINKS

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• Media Partner: IrishCentral

Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 26; Total Episode Count: 167

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Andre Archimbaud spent his life carrying three passports worth of heritage: a French surname, an Italian-American upbringing, and, buried a generation or two back, an Irish line he didn't know existed until a chance conversation set him straight. This episode, recorded at Ryan's Daughter on the Upper East Side, traces how Archimbaud built an identity by choice rather than inheritance.

It started years earlier at a bar in Washington Heights, where a stranger, several drinks in, turned to him and said, "You are what your mother is," invoking a mitochondrial logic Archimbaud had never considered. Two weeks of digging into his maternal line turned up a great-grandfather from Sligo and a great-great-grandmother born in Dublin. From there, U2, a 1997 road trip through Killarney, and a growing engagement with Irish radio and Irish Twitter did the rest.

Archimbaud's other education came from his father, a man who rose from a cramped East Orange apartment to sit on the US Olympic Committee, and who taught his son to network simply by being watched. "It imprinted in me the sort of how to do this," Archimbaud says, a skill that now underwrites Clearly Now Media, the digital agency he launched after nearly two decades in paid search and social advertising.

Even the agency's name has an Irish thread: a Hothouse Flowers cover of "I Can See Clearly Now," framed on his living room wall, that his girlfriend pointed to when he needed a name.

Archimbaud closes on a quieter note: two days alone on Inchydoney Beach in West Cork, sun and rain and a double rainbow, that stayed with him through a season of change.

LINKS

ANDRE ARCHIMBAUD

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IRISH STEW LINKS

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• Media Partner: IrishCentral

RYAN'S DAUGHTER

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Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 25; Total Episode Count: 166

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Gearóid Mcdaid, known across the surfing world as G-Man, grew up twenty minutes from Mullaghmore, County Sligo's fearsome slab wave, and now holds the 2025 European shortboard title with an eye on the 2028 LA Olympics. John and Martin caught him mid-vacation in New York, tucked into Georgie's Chelsea, right under a photograph of the man himself mid-wave.

"It's a pretty cool thing that surfing's in the Olympics now," he says. Gearóid's victory at the European Championships last year did its part for the sport back home, proof, as he puts it, that Ireland has surfers who can compete with the best in the world.

Gearóid walks us through the two lives of a pro surfer: the technical, judged world of competition, and the far riskier business of chasing 50-foot slabs at Mullaghmore, a wave made by limestone reef geology and giant North Athlantic swells. Chasing those waves takes a safety crew on jet skis and a fair amount of nerve, skills built on a childhood his surfer father set in motion, long before Mullaghmore's entered the picture.

"You're always scared," he admits, "but it's just trying to push through it and enjoy it."

He talks sponsors, wave pool training in Scotland, four straight years of injuries, and the tight-knit, fast-growing surf scene back home. "The Irish surf community's so small," he says. "Everyone knows each other that surfs."

Next up for G-Man: a video trip to France for Monster in October, then the World Championships in Peru in November, all building toward one goal. As Martin puts it, fingers crossed we'll see the Irish flag flying on a beach at the LA Olympics in 2028.

LINKS

GEARÓID MCDAID

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  • Mullaghmore in the Summer - Hurricane Erin Swell
  • Mullaghmore in the Winter - Dec 2025
• Seamus Plug: Jackdaw
  
  

GEORGIES CHELSEA (our hosts for this episode)

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POINTBREAK (this episode's featured music)

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IRISH STEW LINKS

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• Media Partner: IrishCentral

Episode Details: Season 8, Episode 24; Total Episode Count: 165

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